Like a Winding Sheet
by ThoseShadows
Summary: The reality of Gene's death enveloped him like a winding sheet, a sheet in which a corpse is wrapped for burial; a shroud. The nightmare was long-seared into his memory, and it was worse than he had ever let on. One-Shot, mildly graphic.
_A/N: I present to you a one shot that I am hoping tears your heartstrings to shreds! (In the best way.)_

 _Hi guys, I'm sorry I have been absent the last few days. I've been writing , I swear. Last week the whole world at once decided it was time for me to determine the direction of my future in a 24 hour-window. Needless to say, it's been a hectic few days! It's finally settled down, now! And it's all good news. I've been working on The Importance of Crayons, but I decided to take a step back just for those few days because I was so stressed out that I did not think what I was writing was coming out at all well, and I want you guys to have the best. That being said, it was the perfect mood to start a heart-wrenching one-shot! So this is the result!_

 _I'm really hoping that the stress and panic is adequately portrayed through the format of this one-shot. I felt stressed out writing it, so I'm hoping it has the same effect on y'all! I wanted it to feel smothering, a bit jarring, and make you go 'BUT NO WHY?!'. It's not my favorite sad piece, but I am still rather happy with how it turned out._

 _If you're in the mood for something even MORE sad and graphic, check out my other one-shot, Drip!_

 _Commence crying._

 _I mean, enjoy!_

* * *

 _A hauntingly familiar scene._

A sleeping form began to toss and turn below the supple white hotel linens.

 _Unrelenting. Wonted._

His wearied mind came to blows with itself, for just once to keep the vile memories out of his dreams.

 _A peaceful breeze, one that did nothing to mollify the intrusive thoughts disturbing his consciousness, caressed his cheeks and weaved its fingers through his dark hair._

He aggressively scrunched the bedspread between his fingers, desperately hoping he would somehow claw his way out of the inevitable.

 _A_ _forlorn smile curled his lips. It's decided._

He furrowed his brow, sweat beading on his forehead.

 _Stop._

He jerked his head to the side, averting his unseeing eyes from a scene concealed from the rest of the world.

 _Don't._

His body trembled.

 _Please._

His breath hitched in his throat.

 _One step._

He desperately needed to breathe.

 _A flash of red._

His lungs screamed for oxygen, but instead of air, he felt as though he swallowed billows of fire. Everything burned.

 _Indescribable, unbearable pain—_

A pair of cold, deep blue eyes snapped open.

With a rasping wheeze, Oliver shot straight up in his bed, his vision swimming and head throbbing excruciatingly. He gasped for breath, adrenaline and fear pumping mercilessly through his veins. His heartbeat pounded deafeningly in his ears. He leaned forward and covered his face in his hands to hide his panic, even though there was no one around to witness his moment of pitiful vulnerability.

He disgusted himself.

He slid his hands up his face, pausing to press the heels of his hands into his eyes briefly before continuing the rest of the way and threading his fingers in his hair. He dug his fingernails into his scalp, ignoring the resulting discomfort.

He almost welcomed it.

It was better than letting an unchecked lingering fusion of emotions _—_ one which he did not wish to _begin_ to understand _—_ demolish his psyche.

He did not let up until he steadied his breathing, though in the end it still remained incredibly shallow. He dropped his arms to his sides, squeezing his eyes shut in an attempt to repress the residual traces of his dream from repeating over and over again in his head.

It was to no avail.

The nightmare was already long-seared into his memory.

Practically every night since that dreadful vision—even all those long months after the fact—he was forced to relive the gruesome death of his older brother.

 _Every. Harrowing. Detail._

Experiencing it once in real-time was apparently just not enough.

Oliver swung his legs over the side of his bed. He needed to stay awake. He stood to make his way to the washroom to splash his face with icy water, but almost immediately his legs buckled underneath him. He collapsed to the floor, unable to catch himself on the nightstand by his bed. He suppressed a throaty, incensed grunt, moving to flank his back against the side of the bed in defeat. He leaned his head on the edge of the mattress and looked up at the ceiling, exhaling unevenly and willing himself not to sink back into the nightmare.

But he couldn't.

Like a winding sheet, the unpleasant memories draped over his mind, forcing him to surrender…

 _Having strangled out all his energy, his psychometry finally relinquished him, dumping his body onto the floor of his brother's bedroom like he was nothing._ _He laid motionless on the ground, blinking blearily. His mouth tasted of bitter vitriol and blood. He wanted—needed—to get up, but any sudden movement caused his heartbeat to stutter and agonizingly slow._

 _He was aware that several people burst into the room, no doubt alarmed by his earlier involuntary cries of anguish._

 _It just hurt so badly._

 _He saw no faces, just the frantic shuffling of their feet. Every hollow step speared his head viciously, triggering the onset of a devastating migraine. He could hear them screaming his name, but they sounded so far away and he feared the high-pitched ringing was too loud for him to answer them…_

 _Someone jostled his body and rolled him onto his back, causing a blue dress shirt to slip from between his fingers. Someone propped his head on their lap. It hurt his neck, but he was too faint to protest. The overhead light blinded him for a few seconds, only to be abruptly blocked out by the dark silhouette of a head._

 _Who…?_

 _Behind the dancing black spots in his vision, he could just barely make out the image of Lin._

 _Lin was cradling his head._

 _Why was he yelling…?_

 _Oliver's eyes fluttered shut. He just needed to rest… Just… For a little while…_

 _A sharp blow to his cheek snapped his eyes open again, intensifying his headache and momentarily amplifying the shrill ring in his ears._

 _The unpleasant noise finally began to abate, and though still exceptionally hazy, his vision started to stabilize. Over the ringing he could finally hear the commotion. Someone was crying. Thundering voices still bellowed his name, only now they felt too close and loud._

' _Noll!' Lin shouted. 'NOLL!'_

 _Oliver tried to lift his hand to let them know he could hear them and that they needed to shut up lest his head implode, but his fingers merely twitched. He needed to speak but he was being swallowed by the unremitting invocation of his name all around him._

 _NollNollNOLLNollNollNollNollNollNollNOLLNOLLNollNollNOLLNollNollNollNollNollNollNOLLNOLLNollNOLLNollNollNollNollNollNollNOLLNOLLNollNOLLNollNollNollNollNOLL_

 _Stop if only he could just—_

 _NollNOLLNOLLNollNOLLNollNollNollNollNollNollNOLLNOLLNOLLNOLLNOLLNOLLNOLLNOLL_

 _He frantically struggled to talk but he had no air—_

 _NOLL. NOLL. NOLL. NOLL. NOLL. NOLL. NOLL. NOLL._

 _Without warning, Oliver's body convulsed in a series of violent coughs. Lin coaxed his head to the side to prevent him from choking on his own bile._

' _Noll?!' the weeping voice shrieked. Luella entered his line of sight, followed quickly by Martin. Her face was soaked with tears, her eyes swollen and puffy, and her cheeks a brash shade of red._

 _Guilt twisted in his abdomen, heightening a nausea he had been in too much pain to notice until that moment. It overwhelmed him and his gut wretched, impelling the contents of his stomach onto Lin's dark pants and the floor._

 _He had no energy to feel humiliated._

 _Save for his irregular breathing, the room had fallen silent._

 _Minutes passed before someone finally spoke. Maybe hours. Oliver could not tell._

' _Noll, can you hear me?' Lin quizzed. He gathered what little strength he had and nodded almost imperceptibly, carefully turning his head to look up at his assistant. He heard his mother sigh in relief, though clearly still weeping. He wished she would stop._

 _Oliver opened his mouth to speak. 'Don't speak," Lin interrupted him._ 'Don't,' _he repeated tersely when Oliver attempted to protest. 'If I ask you yes or no questions, can you nod?' Poignantly, Oliver nodded, causing the room to spin. 'I'll be as concise as I can,' he swore quietly. 'Did you just use your psychometry?' Oliver nodded again, feeling as if he might be sick again at any moment. 'Did you do it on purpose?' He shook his head, wincing. Lin pursed his lips. 'Do you remember what you saw?'_

 _Oliver's body tensed. Lin frowned._

' _Noll…?' Luella questioned, voice quivering._

 _Finally, he nodded, his eyes flickering ephemerally to where he dropped the blue shirt on the floor beside him. Lin cautiously followed his gaze, but when it reached its target, his expression darkened. He then locked his gaze on Oliver's glassy, half-closed eyes, staring at him hard. Luella looked between the two men anxiously. Though his throat felt coated in cement, Oliver managed to confirm Lin's fears._

' _Gene…' he wheezed. Just the very mention of his name begot the bitter copper taste of bile in his mouth. "D-d…dead," he sputtered. Lin closed his eyes tightly, his usually stoic face contorted in grief._

 _Luella let out the most anguished wail he'd ever heard, one which seemed to leach into all his pores at once, leaving no room for either air or awareness. His vision tunneled and the voices retreated, spiraling him back into a dangerously cataleptic sleep…_

He awoke with a start and slammed his fist into a brittle leg of the nightstand, shattering it and leaving a cluster of splinters in his knuckles.

The ghost of Luella's cry resonated in his mind.

During the short time his body managed to keep him conscious, he had not gotten to divulge the details of his vision with any of them.

And in hindsight, he was glad.

His mother's impassioned reaction to finding one son on the floor teetering on the edge of bereavement and learning the other was deceased made him thoroughly rethink the account he would later impart.

He would later, lying in a hospital bed attached to several beeping machines, explain to everyone that he witnessed Gene walking alongside a road just along the coast of Japan, where he was struck and killed by an unknown woman in a red car, rolled in a yellow sheet, tossed carelessly into her trunk, and dumped like worthless debris into a lake.

None of which was untrue.

But it was deceptive.

His mother wept and fumed for days about how her son was so callously murdered.

But he himself made it a point to never once used the word _murder_ in any conversation related to Gene.

Though Luella loved the both of them the same, Oliver knew that Gene was always viewed as the more sociable, more charismatic, cheerful, kind-hearted soul against whom the world could speak no ill. And he _was_ all those things (notwithstanding the fact that he had a notable mischievous streak and that Oliver found his outgoing personality both confusing and repulsive). So, rather than taint her memory of Gene and his happy life, he just never bothered to correct her.

He was not technically lying.

Yes, Gene was dead at the hands of another.

But was he murdered?

No.

Did she _deserve_ to know that?

Maybe.

Did she _need_ to know that?

Absolutely not.

He conjectured the knowledge would cause her an unreasonable, irreparable amount of guilt with which he had no desire to see her suffer.

She had no reason to feel guilty, but he knew she would.

He picked at the tiny shards of wood in his hand.

He should have gone with Gene. He had told that stupid idiot…

' _Noll, I'm going to be fine, I promise,' Gene assured with a weak smile. Oliver folded his arms and narrowed his eyes, leaning against his twin's bedroom doorway._

' _Who are you trying to convince?' he inquired accusatorily. Gene glared at him for a moment before looking away. He refocused himself on neatly packing his suitcase._

' _I want to do this. I can do this on my own," he asserted. 'I feel okay.'_

' _You're lying, Gene,' he replied, voice nearly a growl. ''We both know you have been having a hard time—'_

' _I'm not weak, Noll. You don't need to protect me.'_

' _I never said you were weak,' Oliver replied curtly. 'I've never thought that.'_

 _Gene sighed, turning around to face him._

' _I feel like there is a 'but' hidden in there somewhere,' he replied, crossing his arms to mirror his twin._

' _But,' Oliver confirmed. 'I think you're being stupid.' Gene rolled his eyes._

' _Just because I don't agree with you doesn't make me stupid,' he countered._

' _I would beg to disagree,' Oliver sneered._

' _You're impossible!' he barked, throwing his arms out in frustration._

' _And_ you're _not invincible,' he answered. 'Unless you've forgotten.'_

' _Shut up, Oliver,' Gene seethed. Oliver could tell his brother's temper was rising; his usually pale face was flushed and his breaths came angry and shallow. He clenched his fists tightly until they trembled. 'Just acknowledge that you don't trust me.'_

' _It's not_ you _I mistrust,' he corrected. 'You have no idea what it is going to be like over there.' He pushed himself from the wall, arms still crossed. 'I don't know how much I'll be able to help you if you're that far away. We are not accustomed to such long distances.'_

' _Maybe I won't need your help,' he refuted. Oliver ignored him._

' _I'd be more comfortable being within a reasonable distance of you.'_

 _Gene's features softened, a smile just barely tugging at the corner of her lips._

' _You're worried about me,' he mused, hooking his thumbs into his jean pockets._

 _Oliver shifted his weight uncomfortably, breaking his gaze to stare off to the side._

' _No I'm not,' he contended. Gene raised an eyebrow._

' _You_ are _,' he argued._

' _That's stupid,' Oliver maintained, looking back to his brother's face._

 _But not in the eyes._

 _Gene chuckled softly._

' _Martin already said you can't afford to skip out on your studying,' Gene pointed out, tapping the crease of his elbow peevishly._

' _And when has that stopped me before?' Oliver countered, undaunted enough to lock their gazes again. Gene's mouth snapped shut with an audible click. Oliver smirked. 'If you want me to go, I can find a way.'_

' _Why don't you just admit you'll miss me, Noll?' he jested in an attempt to divert the subject further._

' _I'm not joking around,' he retorted, voice devoid of emotion. A heavy silence settled over the room._

 _It felt like ages had passed before one of them spoke._

' _How many of them are there right now, Gene?' Oliver prodded, his derisive tone indicating that he was trying to prove a point. Gene hesitated, glancing around at something Oliver could not see._

' _Three,' he replied nonchalantly, turning back to his packing. Before Oliver could interject, he added, 'But they are not_ that _strong. And I've already cleansed one away.'_

' _So there were four,' Oliver assessed. 'That's a lot, even for you.' Gene shrugged._

' _I manage.'_

' _How about I tell Luella and Martin how well you 'manage' yourself?' he suggested. Gene snapped his head around to look at him._

' _Really, Noll? You're going to tattle on me?' He shook his head to clear away that train of thought. 'There is nothing to even tattle about!'_

' _I can already think of four reasons to notify them,' he replied, gesturing around at the seemingly empty air of the room. 'You know what can happen if you get overwhelmed.' Gene said nothing. 'I don't understand why you are so against my accompaniment. You help me control my PK, but you don't hear me complaining about it.'_

' _Yeah, well, I'm not perfect like you are,' Gene crooned spitefully. He stalked angrily to his dresser and ripped open a drawer to grab another armful of clothes._

' _That is not a reason for me not to go,' Oliver reasoned. Gene angrily began stuffing the clothes into his bag._

' _Drop it, Noll,' he fumed. Oliver took a few steps forward, standing as close to Gene as his comfort zone would allow._

' _We mitigate each other. Just accept it.'_

' _That's not the problem,' he muttered. He reached for an article on his bed to begin folding it meticulously. He needed to channel his resentment into something else before he exploded. 'You don't get it…'_

' _Then enlighten me,' he insisted scathingly._

' _You can't always_ be there for me _, Noll!' Gene shouted, whirling around and aggressively chucking the blue dress shirt he held in his hands to the floor at Oliver's feet. He remained unfazed, incensing Gene further. 'Don't treat me like a child! You can't follow me everywhere!' He stepped towards his brother, closing the gap between them despite the discomfort he knew it to cause. He fiercely poked a finger into his chest. Oliver stiffened, but displayed no emotion in his face. 'What, do you plan on moving with me where we're older? Do you?!' He poked him again._

 _Oliver knew better than interrupt him, so he let his twin unload._

' _Are you going to live with me when we're both married? With children?' Against his better judgment, he amended, 'Oh, I'm sorry, when_ I'm _married with children.' Oliver's expression darkened, understanding that comment was intended to be an insult. Gene smirked, despite the guilt that dug at his chest. He didn't mean it, but it was too late now. He was on a roll. 'Do you think that I'm not capable of living on my own? That I can't handle myself?! I need to prove that I can do this!' He reached out to give his brother a finalizing shove, but Oliver caught his wrists tightly, staring him dead in the eye. Gene ripped his arms away, panting furiously. 'I need to do this on my own,' he repeated, voice lowering considerably. 'If I can't live like this on my own, then what's the point in even existing?' He thought he saw Oliver flinch, but he could not be sure; it was too fleeting. Damn him and his stupid composure. He did, however, see him raise an eyebrow, challenging him to continue._

 _After too long a pause, he promised, 'I'm not going to do anything stupid.'_

 _They stared at each other, unblinking._

' _You better not, Eugene,' Oliver finished, punctuating his warning with a graceful exit._

That was the last real conversation they would ever have. The next day, the day of Gene's departure, the two were still miffed at one another and neither of their prides permitted them to mutter even a halfhearted apology. To boot, both their ends of the Line were sealed tight.

The two were as different as night and day, but they regrettably shared one fundamental characteristic: arrogance.

They shared a courteous last goodbye at the airport, not realizing that's truly what it was.

The last goodbye.

Oliver heaved a sigh and clenched his injured hand into a fist, watching as the blood beaded on the surface of the minute cuts left behind by the splinters he successfully removed. Perhaps he deserved it.

He shifted his body and gripped the edge of the bed, hoisting himself up unsteadily. His strength had yet to return. Given his history with the night terrors, he had no reason to expect it to return until he managed to fall asleep for a third time.

Not that falling asleep again sounded even the least bit appealing.

He gritted his teeth, balancing himself on the bed with one hand and pinching the bridge of his nose with the other. He should be used to this by now, but for some reason, every single time, a wound he could not figure out how to suture bled the unvarying reality.

He should not have walked away.

He was exceptionally intelligent and he knew it.

So why had he done something so stupid?

He could have come up with a plan.

If he had persisted, Gene might still be around to… _pester_ him with his _appallingly_ pleasant personality.

Yes.

He was sure _pester_ was the right word.

Gene was a medium, and a damn good one at that.

But even the best mediums had their limits.

Even as a child, Gene had been a gifted spiritualist. His ability to interact with spirits was unparalleled; he could channel them, communicate with them, and exorcise or cleanse them. He was highly sought after, especially as his powers grew with age.

However, with this psychic maturity, he began to be sought out by more than just curious people, scientists, and the haunted. Spirits themselves (the majority of whom were lost on their way to whatever awaited them on the other side) were drawn to his kindness and skill. He was a magnet of sorts. For the benign, he was a beacon of light, someone who could see them; someone they could trust to help them pass on. For the malevolent, he was a target. He was a vessel, a victim so sensitive to their energies that they were often able to taunt him and abuse his power.

He did not mind. Not at first. He was incredibly passionate about his work as a medium and was honestly thrilled to be making such an impact in the spiritual community, alongside Oliver. Whether vindictive or benevolent, he nearly always handled a spiritual case with success. The experiences took their toll both physically and mentally, but they were few and far between in the beginning, granting him ample recovery time.

But, as the years passed, spirits flocked to him with greater frequency and number, and as talented as he was, he was not emotionally or physically developed enough to handle it on his own. That did not stop him from trying, though. Initially, he would deal with them as they came, even if that meant dealing with multiple spirits in one day. One day chockablock with spirits was not the end of the world, but many days in rapid succession… It was a disaster waiting to happen. On bad days (case in point: the day he packed for his trip to Japan) he might have been approached by four spirits or more, some of which required more of his attention than others. He did what he could, but often times he could not deal with all his ghostly patients when they wanted him to. He was simply too spent.

That did not prevent the spirits from following, nagging, and begging him for help, trying to pry into his consciousness to get his attention. They were persistent; they hunted their desires with abandon. He was familiar with a few warding spells, but they were of little use when he was utterly exhausted.

It was enough to drive a person mad.

Gene first confronted Oliver with his problem when they were 13 years old, though Oliver, who was indisputably not the best at reading people, had noticed a change in his behavior in the months before. Gene was constantly lethargic, no matter how many hours of sleep he got in a night. He hardly ate. Although he put on a convincing happy facade in front of all and sundry, including their parents, Oliver noticed his once-exultant, approachable brother become depressed and withdrawn. In fact, he noted that Gene acting happy seemed to make him gloomier.

So, when Gene confessed to Oliver that he was having trouble, he was hardly surprised.

Though Oliver could not convince Gene to tell Martin and Luella the nature of his problem, he at least goaded him into asking for formal training in warding spells and meditation ( _just for fun_ , Gene had insisted). This appeared to help at first, but he barely kept up with the increasing number of spirits and their intensities. To remedy this, Oliver suggested sending Gene power through the Line for amplification, like they did when he needed to use his PK. But instead of sending it back to him to release, Gene would keep it to help ward away spirits. He would deal with the entities when they encountered one another, but when there proved to be too many, he would use the augmented power to keep them at bay until he felt well enough to acknowledge them.

This proved ultimately more successful, so they continued in that manner for two years in conjunction with his official training. However, even that strategy had its faults. It was still tiring to release the energy consistently to keep the spirits at a distance, and the amount of fatigue, frustration, and the constant barrage of mixed emotions did nothing to better the situation.

Oliver speculated that his brother could have been clinically diagnosed with some form of depressive disorder as a result of the countless disembodiments that shadowed him, but he was no psychologist at the time and Gene adamantly rejected the idea and insisted he was fine.

He was always 'fine,' right up until the day of his death.

 _All he wanted to do was borrow his brother's stupid clothes because Luella had yet to do laundry and according to her he needed to look 'presentable' that evening at a function he can no longer recall._

 _But as soon as his fingers brushed the sleek fabric of the blue shirt he salvaged from the floor of his brother's bedroom, his entire essence was thrust into another scene and shoved into a body and mind that was not his own. It took him a moment to orient himself. He did not recognize the landscape, but he knew where he was._

 _Japan._

 _He was Gene. His thoughts, his feelings, everything—he was sure he was Gene._

 _He appeared to be walking to his residence. He trod dangerously close to the edge of the thoroughfare, staring blankly out at the stony beaches that raced alongside the road beside him. It was a beautiful day, but for some reason, he was not enjoying it._

 _His head felt clouded. Not like himself._

 _He was so tired. Miserable. Desperate. Irate—at himself and at his state of affairs. Tired. Tired. Tired._

 _Tired._

 _Gene suddenly stood still around a sharp bend in the road. Oliver willed him to move, but he wouldn't._

 _Oliver unexpectedly sensed that he—that_ Gene— _was not alone. But there was no one there. Where were they?_

 _Oliver was alarmed when, from his wake, emerged a constellation of lights. He could see them even in the bright sunlight._

 _Gene was not deterred in the slightest. They must have been following him for a while now. They encircled him, dancing around him in tempestuous loops._

 _How many were there?_

 _Seven…_

 _Eight…_

 _Nine…?_

 _Ten?!_

 _Oliver quit counting._

 _He felt an uncharacteristic panic building in his core, but it was overwhelmed by Gene's numbness._

 _Most of the lights did not feel particularly harmful. Just insistent._

 _Except for one particular light. It came precariously close—so close Oliver felt its glow on Gene's skin: simultaneously too hot and too cold. It was brighter than all the others, but filled him with an unfathomable darkness. Disturbing thoughts (that unfortunately were not all foreign to Oliver) penetrated Gene's mind._

 _I don't want this, he thought. It's too hard. It's too much. I'm tired. I want to quit. Make them go away. Let me escape. Why won't they leave me alone? There's too many. Why are there so many? Why can't I handle this? I'm a failure. A disgrace. I'm weak. I can't do this on my own. I shouldn't be here. No one will want me. Who would miss me? Will this ever stop? What if it never stops? How can I live with this for the rest of my life?_

 _I can't._

 _I want to die._

 _A peaceful breeze, one that did nothing to mollify the intrusive thoughts disturbing his consciousness, caressed his cheeks and weaved its fingers through his dark hair. A_ _forlorn smile curled his lips._

 _From behind him, Oliver could hear the faint humming of an engine._

 _It's decided._

Stop _._

 _Gene turned to face the origin of the comforting sound._

Don't _._

 _A vividly-colored, speeding car whipped around the bend. One step. A flash of red. Then it would be over._

Please _._

 _As the vehicle neared him, he inhaled deeply. An eerie peace settled over him. Gene closed his eyes, obscuring Oliver's view of what he knew was to come._

 _He took a calculated step out into the road._

 _Indescribable, excruciating pain._

 _He violently hit the hood. The windshield. Over the roof and onto the road. His arms were twisted at unnatural angles. Bone poked out of a mangled leg. Broken ribs scraped at his insides. His body was cluttered with glass, each wound expelling hot, red blood._

 _But he was not dead._

 _He was supposed to be dead._

 _The twirling lights flittered through his vision, almost taunting him. How he envied them._

 _He was in so much pain. So much he could hardly think. Hot tears fell from his eyes, and he tried to yell out in pain. Instead, he vomited blood. But Oliver knew Gene did not regret it. He did not want to take it back. He did not wish he'd never done it. Then, more than ever, he wanted to breathe his last._

 _He watched a woman get out of the car that had abruptly stopped in front of him. Oliver hoped she got out to help his stupid brother. She got very close to him, but he could only see her from the waist down. Gene tried to yell out to her, but when he opened his mouth he again expelled only blood. His body kept lurching, trying to breathe, vomit, and scream all at once. He felt like he was drowning._

 _The woman screamed and darted for her car. Oliver prayed for help but Gene hoped she was going to flee and leave him._

 _Both of them were wrong._

 _She backed over him to make sure he was dead. Gene was sordidly grateful._

 _But still he did not die. The rest of his rib cage snapped under the tires, puncturing his lungs and rupturing God knows how many arteries. A high-pitched ring pierced his ears. His vision fogged. He was so close…_

 _She piloted the car forward one more time, and in a twisted sense, it was Oliver's turn to feel grateful because that finally put an end to it all._

 _That killed him._

 _Oliver felt a mixture of positive emotions he did not care to decipher swelling within his brother's now disembodied soul._

 _His eyesight turned disturbingly clear after a dark green filter subjugated his vision. Oliver watched as the woman exited the car again, threw his remains into her trunk, later wrapped him in a yellow sheet, and tossed him into jarringly cold water. It got very dark very quickly._

 _And then there was nothing._

 _He succeeded._

 _Now he could finally let go._

 _Feel better. More alive than he had in years._

But Oliver couldn't. He had experienced death more times than he could count, some even more vile and brutal than his brother's. Those haunted him in their own right. But now, he was stuck with the memory, with the knowledge that there was something he could have done. He was stuck reliving Gene's death, experiencing the feelings he could not understand, and keeping to himself the trigger of his brother's impulsive, rash behavior and its aftermath.

He couldn't take it anymore. He needed to snap out of it, rid himself of the bubbling emotions before they affected him profligately. That would be simply unacceptable. He pushed away from the bed and stumbled through the dark towards the bathroom with an overwhelming desire to rinse away his indignity so he could ground himself again.

Rationality.

He needed rationality.

 _Those goddamned emotions were not rational._

He stumbled in the threshold of the bathroom, dragging his fingers across the wall blindly to find the switch. He found it and flipped it on, blinding himself temporarily. He covered his eyes with his non-bloodied hand, ignoring the burning of his retinas. He felt his hip harshly bump into the corner of the sink counter, painfully signaling the end of his trek. He absentmindedly reached up to touch his face with one hand and grasped the cold-water faucet with the other, preparing to douse his face. However, he stopped dead in his tracks.

There was no need.

He glanced at his reflection in the mirror, startled and confused. He traced a line of moisture up his cheek delicately.

Apparently his face was already sufficiently wet.


End file.
